Undeniable
by redphlox
Summary: Christened as the 'Lady of the Beach' by the townsfolk, lifeguard Maka "rescues" a vacationer she's undeniably drawn to but who won't share his name. As they get to know each other better and the long summer days give way, she finds herself wishing for the first time that the season and its love could stay. Beach House/Lifeguard AU. SoulxMaka.
1. prelude

i'm excited to present this beach/lifeguard AU for reverb 2017! my artist partner guacamoletrash on tumblr is the sweetest and best avocado and it was a pleasure to work with them! please go check out their art and playlist for this project and smother them in love, they deserve it! shoutout to professor-maka and lunar-resonance for betaing, and to soundofez and the-brightest-fell for the support!

warnings: smut, vague mentions of drowning, language

* * *

 **Undeniable** by redphlox

They're standing on the beach. Maka wishes she could paint them in the moment: two dark brushstrokes against the infinite, smoldering horizon.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he hums, squinting against the sun and looking sort of amazed. "Is that how you smile?"

Mind going blank with the serenity of the moment, Maka tilts her head. The dying light turns him into a half-silhouette with translucent hair. Sunsets glaze everything they touch with gilded beauty and he's no exception - he's impossibly nice to look at during this time of day, when the world holds its breath before sighing out darkness.

"That's something you're going to have to find out by yourself," she finally responds, cheeks tingling.

"Okay," he says, nonchalant, "I have all summer." Shaking hands makes their shy friendship official. His palm is soft, his fingertips calloused, and his grip firm, protective.

"I'm Maka," she offers. "What's your name?"

"That's something you're gonna have to find out for yourself, Miss Lifeguard."

By the way his grin makes her nervous, she knows this is a challenge she can't turn down. She's drawn to him the way magnets slide toward one another when they're within the right distance, steadily, _fervidly_.

The collision will be glorious.

"Deal," she agrees, wondering if he's worrying his bottom lip because he can still feel her mouth over his.

She can only hope.

After all, summer has begun, and so has something else.


	2. interlude one

Christened as the 'Lady of the Beach' by the townsfolk, Maka spends her summer days on the lookout for those who need their souls saved from the ocean. Sunblock protects her pale skin from the sun's relentless glare when she's not under the observation tower's awning - not that she ever ventures out onto the sand without her floppy hat. She's known as a rule-stickler, a hawk, a nervous Nellie. Standing on the balcony with a whistle in her mouth and a no-nonsense attitude towards rowdy vacationers hasn't earned her endearment from anyone, but in her opinion, it's better to be safe than sorry.

That's why she had jumped in after him. Even if he hadn't needed her help, doing so bridged a gap she didn't know she wanted closed that _badly._ After all, summers bring sunshine and the warmth of people and takes both when it recedes like the tide. Nameless faces come and go, and the process repeats because that's life - ever changing and flowing. Living by the sea guarantees an influx of tourists and passersbys she may never see again, but she's had enough experience with her traveling mama to know that hello and goodbye come as a pair.

Still, though - his solitude seems sweet and melancholic, and that's the first thing about him that had caught Maka's eye a few days ago while she had been on duty, studying the crowd. Shark patterned swim trunks had made her smile, and by nine o'clock at night when most of the beach goers had retreated to their hotels and he was the only left sitting on his towel watching the waves, Maka had memorized the dimples on his back.

And he must have felt her staring, because he kept glancing her way, too.

A true optimist at heart, Maka decides not to believe too stringently in the fleeting stranger theory as she watches _him_ amble toward the tower almost shyly. Hours after their handshake finds them together again as they discussed, Maka having offered him a tour of the town.

"'Kay, I'm back now," he announces, hands behind his head. Though she misses the daylight gracing the expanse of his back, his plain t-shirt fits him so well she can't complain. "Is your shift over yet?"

"Yeah, and I've been waiting for you," she says, busying herself by adjusting her hat and focusing on her toes. She doesn't need it now, under the semi-there stars, but it's useful for hiding a blush. "You're fashionably late."

"Got held up by my brother. Had to explain why the pigtailed lifeguard pulled me out of the water and gave me CPR."

"I thought you were _drowning_ ," she shrieks and squares up to him, red face probably glowing in the early darkness.

"That's what I told him," he says easily. The two stare at one another before bursting into simultaneous laughter - bashful on his part, brave on hers.

Maka clears her throat. "Well, I never kiss anyone without spending time with them first - not that I go around kissing people, and even if I did, there's nothing wrong with that! ...Stop giving me that look! Anyway, let's go."

Sand sticks between her toes as she waddles across the beach, tote bag bouncing against her hip. The sound of her solitary footsteps makes her think she got her hopes up too fast - until frantic scampering starts abruptly, trailing after her.

"What an assertive lady," he drawls, bravado in full force.

She shrugs, resisting a smile for her own sanity. "I know what I want."

Though she's only seen his face up close a couple of times, she can already envision expressive brows hiking up, his interest sparked. "Oh yeah?"

Stopping dead in her tracks and spinning on her heels so quickly her pigtails whip through the air, she leans dangerously close. His eyelashes are whiter than the clouds that roll by everyday. "Yeah, and that might just be you."

X

There's a certain calm that washes over the town at night. The lanterns lighting the boardwalk look like constellations from afar, and the faint music and chattering coming from the restaurants' patios sound almost otherworldly. Though the heat is dry and still during the daytime, the wind blowing through their hair right now has a chill, making Maka wish she had brought along a cardigan.

"This is Death Bucks, your one stop shop for anything sweet and caffeinated," she says, pointing at the skull logo looming above their heads.

"I don't remember this shop," he says, going over to lean against the railing, taking in the other shops.

"Oh! You've been here before?" Maka thinks fast for a brief memory of him walking on the boardwalk or laying out on the beach, but comes up with nothing. In the past five years she's been a lifeguard, someone as reticent and _alone_ would have made an impression on her, and she's kind of mournful she hasn't met him before today.

"Parents own a beach house here," he drawls, shrugging, and Maka joins him in admiring the horizon, where the inky sky and reflective water meet. "I haven't been back in nine years. Before this, we would come every summer, but we stopped when my brother Wes moved away for college… Anyway, do you know the house at the end of Lotus Road?"

She squints into the black waves lapping at the boardwalk's support beams and pretends she's focused on thinking instead of distracting herself from looking at him in her peripheral. "That's in the the Crescent Estates, right? Lots of vacationers rent there because it's a few blocks away from the beach - _ohhh_ , you mean the house with the white picket fence and big windows?"

"Yeah, and the patio overtaken by beach balls, thanks to my brother."

Feverish under his captivated gaze, Maka can't help but be hyper aware of how _slowly_ the realization dawns on her. " _OH,_ the one with its own beach?"

"Yeahhhh, but it doesn't look so great now, what with all the crap that happened to it when it was broken into." An eye roll punctuates his disdain. "So my brother… we're, uh, fixing it. And we're gonna sell it."

What Maka remembers of the chic house at the end of Lotus Road is splotchy and vague. It sits in its own little world, separated by shrubs and sand from the other gleaming and upscale condo homes that look like a TV ready neighborhood, a slice of lavish summer heaven where nothing goes wrong and everything exists in perpetual perfection. Though the house stands equally as grand as the others, what with its sleek shingled roof and modern design, it's been vacant and quiet, the air of recent abandonment making it seem more faraway.

A flashback of seeing him sitting on the beach this week by himself catches up to Maka, and it fits. Of course he's living there, isolated but near.

"Your brother sounds like quite a character," she says, chin in her hand.

"He's a mess. Yesterday he went to Home Depot and flirted with the workers so they could teach him how to use powertools. Because, y'know, he told our parents _I_ could fix the beach house, with my own two hands, and sell it without thinking that I obviously _don't know shit_." He sighs, dragging his hands down his face. "And of course he's trying to say it's _brotherly bonding_."

"But I've seen you at the beach a lot, how can you have time for repairs?" she starts without thinking, pulling her hair into a high bun to shield her rosy cheeks from his view. _Lord_ , if she keeps unintentionally dropping hints that he's _interesting_ , the color might become permanent.

"Procrastination determination," he laughs, and its unexpected charm has Maka suppressing a cry for help by curling her toes and raising her shoulders to her ears. Stopping herself from shivering has never been so awkward. "I'll avoid him for as long as I can - hopefully until he's done."

"Maybe! I could always hide you."

"Please and thank you."

Now she's just an open book, searching to fill silences she would like to use instead for marveling at him. White hair already a divine contrast against the starless sky, the distant glow of the lantern lights coats it with a certain lucidity that challenges her restraint. Reaching out to run her fingers through it would be the only way to make sure he's real and not a mirage her exhausted, sun-drenched mind has imagined.

Beside her, he goes from slouching over the railing to standing tall, throwing his arms overhead in a long stretch, contracting his shoulder blades together before yawning and turning to face her. To say that it's an instinct to face him would be an understatement, and it would be more than a white lie if she tried to claim his wrinkled nose and silly expression don't endear him to her.

Cute, that's the word to describe him. Sleepy eyes, lopsided smile, and sarcastic wit aren't characteristics she thought she'd find engaging, but then again, she never believed in instantaneous, inexplicable connections before this summer.

She's in _trouble_. She doesn't even know his name, but his voice has a nice, deep rumble to it when he says hers: "Okay, Maka, where to next?"

X

They're sitting on the beach, a canvas of deep nothingness above, and the wide, open sea stretched out in front of them. It's hypnotic, the way it moves and bubbles and inherents any color that fills the sky.

"I miss my mama." The illusory four am hour finds her hugging her knees closer and trusting him with a certain vulnerability she's never exposed before. No graceful way exists to sufficiently articulate how she _aches_ to spend a day with her mama, but she can try. "I don't get to see her often because of her research - she does send me letters, and we video call sometimes, but that's never enough."

On his own towel next to her, he's been digging his fingers into the sand, collecting sea shells he spots nearby, and listening. There's no denying that she's been admiring his quietude from her periphery. By now she's familiarized herself with his mannerisms - furrowed brows when he's worried, carding a hand through his hair when he's thinking, slumping forward when she's sharing something particularly hard, as if resonating with her pain.

Now he's still, _so still_ , careful not to break her train of thought.

"I was going to do an internship with her research team in Australia, but that fell through..." Growling might not prevent tears, but it does relieve a fraction of the sorrow steeping in her chest, and she does it so discreetly she doubts he hears it. "And then it was too late to find somewhere else to get that credit, and I don't know, I decided to take some time off from school, until… further notice. So here I am, back home with my papa."

He curses under his breath like he's been punched in the gut, sympathizing. "If that doesn't feel like you went backwards and that everything you did amounted to nothing, then I don't know what would do it."

"Exactly!" Excited that she's finally _understood_ , she forgets she's a flushing fool around him and twists to thank him, cheeks pinched.

He blinks, enthralled. "Is that how you smile?"

She purses her lips and _thinks_ , but sleep deprivation has turned off her brain and all she unearths is a stupid, passive thought about how striking he is and how she should be the one asking that question. "I don't know. Stick around and you'll find out."

He doesn't skip a beat. "So, you feel horrible, but you're smiling," he sums up, nodding.

"What? Oh - yeah, _yeah_! My papa's afraid I'm going to drop out, can you believe that? I'm not, I'm just… I'm tired. I put all my hope into seeing my mama, and I was trying to graduate early…"

"Grad school can wait," he reassures. "There's nothing wrong with taking a break, no matter how long it is. I get it. The burnout is real."

"Is that how it felt for you?" If it didn't feel like she's known him for years, she wouldn't probe such a sensitive topic. "When you dropped out."

"College was this... disaster I let happen to me. And it's not like it was hard. I just didn't have the motivation to major in something my parents picked for me. What if I make the family business go into bankruptcy? Real estate is for people with can-do attitudes and charisma, and I just don't get why they think I can do it."

He starts engraving lines in the sand, his rant becoming more disjointed and distressed, but she connects what he's not saying anyway. The iciness that washes over her when he explains that he's _not good enough_ to function under high expectations has nothing to do with the temperature drop.

"So...you're really not going back. To college, I mean."

" _No,_ and my parents practically disowned me when I told them." Guffawing like a madman, he throws a rock into the sandy abyss in front of them. "They said, how can I run a business if I don't have the education, lala. So everything's riding on selling the beach house, because they're testing me. Wes is helping me, but… but I don't know what's going to happen."

This time, Maka allows herself to stare at him, to admire the slope of his nose and curves of his lips, his strong jaw line. It's the profile of a model, really, and even with his lucrative parents' high statuses, obnoxious egotistical tendencies passed him by, having inherited only rickety confidence. The urge to hold his hand in solidarity is overwhelming, and Maka quiets it by holding her clenched fists by her chest.

"You'll be fine," she says, but it seems bland, _unhelpful_ , and she's not well versed in feeling useless, even though that's becoming the norm as of late. "We can figure out when, what, how you'll do everything, and we can make a plan in case-"

"You're an angel, Maka, but you don't have to go out of your way for me," he says, but he has a rejuvenated air to him, like he's less alone. The way he irons out the round in his posture gives him away, and he brightens more when her skin heats up like it's been sunburned.

"But that's what friends do." She doesn't break the eye contact, however intense and honest and soul searching it might be. But she does try to lighten the mood: "And they also tell each other their names."

"Well, people like me run away from their problems and sit around on the beach and keep their secrets to themselves." One brow quirks up, escalating his cuteness to a level that should be illegal. "And get saved by lifeguards in a Baywatch getup."

" _Hmph!_ I _like_ my bathing suit, thank you very much! It makes me stand out. And - and, _and_ , your swim trunks are the ridiculous 'getup' here, if we're going to be passing judgement on each other."

"It's pure science, Maka! As a future marine biologist you should know that the sharks on my shorts will scare away other sharks."

"N-no? You've only been in the water once." Cue the inward berating: _stop sounding like a creeper, stop saying weird things, why am I like this, why do bad things happen to good people?_

"Truth is… I don't know how to swim." He rubs the sleep out of his eyes lazily. "Wes tried to teach me when I was a dumb six-year-old, but all he did was carry me to the deep side of our pool and leave me there when Dad yelled that the barbeque was ready." He drums his fingers on an imaginary table in front of him, _one, two, three, four_ times before meeting her gaze again, this time with hopeful bravey. "Think you could teach me?"

She doesn't respond right away. Lulled by the sound of his calm voice and the _whoosh_ of waves blanketing the shore on and off, she's startled by the question, elated that he's asking to see her again and hopeful, _hopeful_ , and she tries to box those feelings away as she says, "Sure - but how do you know I won't up and leave you if I get hungry?"

"I trust you with my life - my _soul_ \- since you _did_ save me when I didn't need saving." He raises his arms to block her sheepish arm flails at being reminded of his chapped lips and how they contorted as he squirmed away. In retrospect, that should have been the first sign he wasn't _unconscious_ ,and that he didn't need CPR, but in her defence, she had chalked that up to the irony that panic tends to rob a drowning victim of their judgement.

That, and it had been waist-deep water, but she was doing her _job_. Something about the adrenaline rush of diving in after him and meeting his mouth must have short circuited her brain, because she doesn't think she'll be able to concentrate on anything else for a long time.

Beside her, he gulps before talking, this time with a timidness that melts her doubts away. "Maybe tomorrow? Uhm." He scans the horizon, the sunrise's watercolors painting the sky. "Later today, I guess?"

"Yeah, and I can show you my favorite snow cone stand after," she says, never one to be outdone, even when it comes to flirting.

She's rewarded with a relieved smile, teeth and all.

X


	3. interlude two

" _SOMETHING TOUCHED MY LEG_!"

"Sorry, that was me," she says, ducking down chin-deep into the water. It seems like she's prone to blushing around him, to accidentally touching him, and she can't hide.

"Oh," he says, and Maka doesn't like how his mouth slopes down, how he pauses with - disappointment? Embarrassment? But then he breaks into a brazen grin that _maybe_ sends her heart flipping, and she's reduced to feeling feverish under his gaze. "You felt slimey, like a shark or a fish or Death's cold touch. _Gross_."

Splashing water at him is her only comeback thanks to her current tongue-tied state, but it fails because his laughter knocks down shaky walls within her, ones she's half-heartedly been trying to build in defense. Keeping distance between them isn't something she wants, so when she takes a tentative step toward him while speeding up her watery attacks, she knows they'll end up entangled.

She can't wait.

"I was kidding - _bleghhhh_ , that water is more salt than anything, whaaat the fuck? Gimme a minute, I've been insulted and traumatized."

It's not fair that he won't tell her his name. She can't properly scold and tease him, can't think about him as a whole if she's missing that crucial piece. Nicknames aren't a plausible substitute, either - she refuses to know him by anything other than his name, which now holds more anticipation and esteem in all this mystery he's set up. The night sky emoji that she saved his phone number under is a slight exception.

Though they're in hip-high water, he submerges himself so only his lips lurk above the surface. The mischief in his eyes could challenge the devil's. "Hey, Makaaaa."

"Don't you _dare_ ," she laugh-shrieks, trying to run away, but moving through water is like swimming in molasses, and she doesn't particularly _want_ to be out of reach.

" _Daaaa-nun, danun, danundan~"_

What should she scream, if she doesn't know his name? Calling him _Jaws_ because he's humming the theme would be corny, but it's not like a big doofus with too long hair and a lone dimple can be knighted anything better than _SwimTrunks McGee_ or _A Cute Loner._

Life is frustrating, but her face is sore from smiling.

Arms that don't feel unfamiliar finally snake around her waist, and the butterflies in her stomach as he picks her up and spins around until they fall back into the water don't disappear after she resurfaces, still in his arms. No, they stay, especially when she brushes his hair away from his eyes and he thanks her by doing the same.

X

 _He_ likes saying her name, and that's dangerous.

She's at his beck and call whenever it comes out of his mouth. Kind of. If he askes. Polite and respectful, he doesn't dare cross any lines, emotional or otherwise, and their physical contact is transitory, usually unplanned except for their swimming lessons. She can't help but want more of him, especially when he makes her name sound like a devotion.

"Maka, do you wanna go with me to the movies?"

It's after her shift, she's letting her hair down, and light slants into her eyes so she's forced to wince.

"Uhm, you don't have to, but I wanted to see you, and - well, no worries." Squirming, he suddenly seems out of sorts in his own skin, and the bad timing clicks with her just when he spurts out an ashamed, "Sorry."

"Wait, don't go - I'll go, I'd love to go! I'm the one who's sorry. The sun was in my eyes."

"Cool," he sighs, recuperating, hand rubbing the nape of his neck, and it's the same nervous tick he falls back on when he invites her to the small piece of beach in his backyard with the promise of brandishing his guitar and serenading her. Everything about the night is trite and she's kind of furious that he composes a song with only her name too, because that's when she suspects she's a goner.

"No, _nooo_ ," she cries, _pouting_ even, crossing her arms. "You can sing? I'm shocked, I never suspected, you barely talk!"

"I know, I've been told I sound like a sweet lil cherub protecting a newborn in its crib," he jokes, strumming up a cringeworthy cacophony that doesn't cover up their fits of laughter.

"I'm dead serious, you definitely sound great, and I feel like you've been holding out on me. I could sit here all night listening to you."

That's a prediction, or a promise, because she stays until the sun chases away the night, and then spends the rest of the day with him, listening.

X

She's wax under his touch.

Maybe asking him for help with her sunblock is a bad move, one that is leagues out of her scope of bravery. Knees wobbly, she doesn't think she can hold herself up if they continue, and he's only _barely_ touched her. A cautious finger smears the (cold, so cold, but maybe normal temperature and he's scaling in comparison) lotion around the back of her shoulder like he's finger painting. From inside the observation tower, the sundry of beach acoustics mesh together and ring in her ears, but she suspects that has everything to do with _him,_ too.

"You better not be writing anything bad," she warns, but it doesn't carry the playfulness she intends. She sounds throaty to her own ears, fussy. "Uhm, go more?" _That makes no sense._ "I mean, use your hand more…"

Hesitation on his part strikes terror in her - it occurs to her that she's not only testing her own boundries, but _his_ , and he might not want them pushed, might feel trapped here in this cramped room with her, cornered, pressured, _uncomfortable_ -

Or, he might not have limits. He responds by not only using his other hand _but by applying pressure_ , borderline kneading the sunblock into her shoulder and then moving onto her back. Her mind goes static-y, numb, and she's sure her lungs have malfunctioned because she can't breathe. Biting on her lip reassures her she's still alive.

"Under the straps too," she hears herself saying. _Lord_. "Just in case."

The sublime feeling his hand slipping under her suit has her mentally keysmashing.

X

"So this is your…"

Maka Albarn is at a loss. Saying _house_ would be a selfish betrayal, because when this plushy, expensively furnished house is sold, he'll be going bye bye and will have no excuse to come back to town, and somehow that thought feels like she's running through a never ending rosebush.

"My habitat, yeah," he finishes for her, waving around flippantly. "This is the kitchen. I sleep upstairs. Wes is God knows where, doing whatever, hopefully not breaking anything or putting his foot in his mouth."

"I want to meet him," she says, looking around for any sign of this mysterious older brother who can rush into destructive mayhem and rid himself of it using sheer luck.

"You don't, he's a mess," he deadpans, shaking his head. "And he's way in over his head, too. Kinda feel bad for him for doing this to me, not gonna lie."

Maka gives the kitchen a once over. Other than the fully stocked pantry and assorted wrappers cluttering the counters, it doesn't look like the place has been touched in years, which she knows to be true. "And… what exactly needs fixing?"

"Every other room except this one," he grumbles, then motions for her to turn left, down a graffiti-adorned hallway that has her eyes bugging out, but that does little to prepare her for the aftermath of a room that might've been wrecking-balled by a tornado. The scene is something she'd expect of a hotel after a riotous party, not a grandiose house by the sea.

"Yeah, so, the task my brother signed me up for was… to fix this mess and prove to our dear parents that I'm not a good-for-nothing idiot."

Her vision tunnels, her understanding of his situation reaching that visceral point that comes with pangs of dread and accompanying prophetic dreams of failure. Reigning in her emotions is of the utmost importance - he's watching her intently, like he's following her lead, so she _can't_ freak out.

"You could easily hire someone to paint and patch up these walls, no problem," she assures, ignoring the electrical mess of the busted chandelier and scratched hardwood floors. Holy water, too, because the people who broke in were experienced in drawing realistic genitalia. If he weren't stifling a nervous breakdown, they'd probably be snickering. "Uhm… some of this will definitely have to be done professionally."

"That's what I told my brother, thank you! But Wes has his pride and believes in me, and I don't."

As if summoned, someone who looks just like her shark swim-trunks-wearing sort-of-more-than-friend materializes in the doorway, bewildered and unable to recognize her until many blinks and seconds later. Maka studies him too - studies _Wes_ , who's a bit taller than… well, _him_ with the secret name, if not more broad-shouldered and thinner around the waist.

" _OH_! Hello! So you're the guardian angel I've been told to shut up about."

"Wes, please remove yourself from the premises," he groans, slapping a hand over his face. "Cease and desist."

Maka, however, positively beams.

"Thank you for taking care of my little brother, he's… an odd gremlin." Ignoring more indignant protests and witchcraft-resembling curses, Wes nods at her, curt and serious, dragging a rolling suitcase out in front of him. "He's gonna need your help, too."

"What! Fuck _you,_ Wes, you can't leave! You got me into this crap."

"Listen, little brother - you must fend for yourself, because Dad called me out to help him on a business trip."

"This is just like that time in the pool - "

"I was young and foolish then, forgive me."

"What about me? I'm young and foolish _now_! Why are you being such a heathen to me?"

There's no resentment between them at all, only genuine, bantering caring, and Maka watches the two interact like she's following a tennis ball during a tennis match.

"I'm so _screwed_ , I can already feel Mom and Dad's disapproving stares all the way from fucking God forsaken _Hartford._ They won't even let me be buried in the family plot after this."

"Don't worry, you won't be alone. I'll request to buried wherever you are."

"Shut up, Wes, that's not funny." He emphasis this by flipping Wes off, then resigns himself to solitary home improvement hell with a scowl. "Just leave."

"Sorry." Wes stands there for a second, regarding the mayhem with tormented regret. "You got this, though."

"All I have is crippling anxiety and an embolism just waiting to happen." Now sullen and forlorn, he sinks to the floor, right on one of the few spots that hasn't been destroyed, slumping forward like he wants to slip underground face first.

Maka is by his side before she registers her legs moving, hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't say that - I'll help you! We have all summer, right?"

But he doesn't perk up. The lines that mar his face seem like they're nothing new, but that's not what dejects Maka the most.

"Yeah…" He glances away from her to withhold the inner turmoil his eyes disclose. " _Only_ the summer." 

X

Thank Heaven for sunblock, his hands, and the giddiness that the combination of the two bring.

Maka loses count of how many times he's touched her, but it always leaves her famished, anyway, so she indulges in the brief contact - holding hands when they're crossing the street, climbing down a slope, or when the other looks emotionally tired. She's honored, because he says he's never been open like this with anyone before, and she wouldn't want it any other way.

Trust must be why they're always together. Day or night, it doesn't matter, because he walks her home and then they switch to texting before she has even closed the front door, and that doesn't stop until one of them falls asleep (usually her, with the phone still clutched in her hand.) She wanders over to the beach house for breakfast before her shift, and then they pass the time at night by people watching on the boardwalk or looking for seashells, telling each other things they normally wouldn't during the day time.

They're braver under the moon, after all.

And they have a lot in common. He's afraid of the future and she's in limbo, not sure about anything except that she misses him when he's not around. With the task of handling the beach house's repairs now on his shoulders, he doesn't lounge on his towel and soak in the sun while she's on duty anymore, so the five minutes they spend together before her shift compensates for not being able to see him.

 _Almost_. At least he accepts her help and optimism about the project - helping him _might_ be a little self-centered because it guarantees bonding time, but by the way he enjoys trips to the hardware store together and lights up when they're mistaken for a happy couple, she thinks it might be okay.

What she respects about him the most is that he never tries anything, even if she wouldn't mind it, would ask for it, and that means the world to her. He never deviates from his innocent sunblock-applying routine, never treats her less than sacred, and she too often overthinks the fact that his hands never _linger_.

Except for today. He comments on the birthmark imprinted on her shoulder blade for the first time ever, voice low and wondrous.

"It looks just like a crescent moon," he says, tracing it delicately, making her both cold and hot at the same time.

X

"This is harder than all those Do It Yourself-ers made it seem on Youtube."

Maka wipes the sweat from her brow with her forearm and reconsiders the wallpaper in her hands, turning it upside down, canting her head. "Now that I'm looking at this again, I can't tell if it matches the paint we brought?"

" _No_ , hell no, it has to match. That wallpaper's going up, and it's gonna stay up even when our holy savior returns."

"But, but - the little triangles on it are turquoise and the paint has more of a sea green tint to it. That's just wrong."

"Same shit," he says, confiscating the abhorrent roll of wallpaper. "I just want this over with ASAP. I'll paint this place black and hot pink if I have to."

Bringing herself up to her full height accomplishes nothing because he's a head taller than her, but she revels in the tiny jolt that seizes him mometarily. The need to know his name has never been more tremendous, life-threatening, and such a scolding is incomplete without it. "That's _not_ going up! It'll ruin your house's value."

A smirk tugs at his lips. "It's wall _paper_ , Maka!"

"Yeah, but!" Grunts and swears escape her as she fails to wrench the roll away from him and severely underestimates his reflexes, miscalculating the lengths he'll go to win an argument. Lording it _over_ her head provokes an annoyed squeak from her, her competitiveness flared up. "It's ugly!"

"It can't be ugly, we bought it together! I feel betrayed, how could you?"

The begrudgingly cute jerk doesn't give in when she tries to jump up and knock the roll out of his grip, nor does she refrain from attempting to climb him like a tree. Ridiculous is what they are - it's eight am on a Saturday, and they have a million things to do before his swim lesson at noon, but they're both in the closet, both stubborn and undeterred when she presses him up against the wall.

"GIVE IT!"

" _Gawd_ , you're stepping on my toes-"

"Sorry!" Hands on his shoulders, she inches away, but she's mesmerized by _him_ , in how natural touching him feels, in how he drops the roll of wallpaper and it sounds like lightning splitting their now stunned silence into halves.

"S'okay," he breathes, rolling his lip between his teeth.

It's semi-dark, and it's hot. There's no air. Just walls that seem to be closing in on them and buzzing electricity like a storm's about to pop. Just _him_ and his closeness, his hand cupping her face, thumbs caressing her cheeks. She steadies herself by leaning into him as he tilts his head down, waiting for him to close the cavernous gap between their mouths, and the gasp that trembles out of her when it finally happens scares him.

"...Shouldn't have done that," he apologizes, breaking away, but Maka is already drawing him back, eyes closing and clumsily learning to move with him. Hands slide down to rub at her neck and she sees white behind her eyelids, fingers digging into his back softly, to make sure he's real.

Patience is staying there like that, getting to know each other's hitched breathing, until he decides to tell her a secret.

"Name's Soul," he beams, kissing her on the forehead before pulling her hair away from her neck and burying his face there.

 _Soul_.


	4. interlude three

It's mid July and they're sitting on the beach, this time on _one_ towel, their arms touching, her skin tingling when he talks.

"If you listen to this seashell, you can hear me regretting this idea and wishing to be taken out by a seagull or something."

"I'm not sure I want to keep that one, then," she jests, but leans over to peck his cheek. "But really, this is fun - I've never had a picnic on the beach before."

Relief looks angelic on him. "Really?"

"Yeah, thank you."

There's sand _everywhere_ , but so is Soul Evans. Temptation is devastating and she's only a weak girl who added a ribboned heart emoji next to his name in her contact list, a girl who blushes as red as her lifeguard swimsuit and decides there's nothing wrong with drowning in him as long as he's in agreement with that, too. A brief kiss to the brow is how she tends to start a make out session, giving up trying to count his lashes while measuring his reaction, meeting his lips, sometimes missing and planting one on his chin or dimple.

Maka doesn't just think they're running out of time, she _knows_ , just like she knows to stroke the skin from his hip to the bottom of his ribcage if she wants him to gasp, just like she knows they're procrastinating finishing the beach house repairs because of the inevitable goodbye its completion will bring.

Good thing kissing has become one of their favorite activities - even if there's sand everywhere as they roll off the towel, his fingers in her hair, her legs wrapped around his hips.

X

Soul pulls her underwater, and she doesn't want to resurface.

No, she doesn't find the gurgling water and muffled soundscape terrifying. She's saved a few swimmers from these obscure depths but none of those memories return to her here, submerged in perpetual blue. Time passes a little more slowly whenever she shows Soul what lies beneath, her hair fanning out above her, feeling like she's floating. She dares to open her eyes and sees foam and stringy pockets of bubbles and the sunlight's reflection on the surface, and then all her attention is on Soul and the excited shiver that rolls down her spine when he ghosts a hand down her back.

 _Here you are_ , his smile seems to say, _got you_ , _got you_ , _thank god I've found you_.

And she would go anywhere with him. He fights the currents to swim to her and kiss her, and they sink up like that, caught up in each other. Maybe it has something to do with that instant connection she felt when she _saved_ him by accident, or the unwavering trust they share, but she's not afraid of anything because of him, when she's _with_ him, and she hopes that feeling stays when the summer is gone.

For now, she can't _breathe_ , that's what she needs.

X

"The floors look _beautiful_ , Soul. The house is coming along nicely."

"Yeah, it's amazing what money can buy you."

They don't sleep much when they're together, and the darker it is, the more talking they do. Having their own personal backyard ocean to relax on after laboring has that effect. Soul offers his arm as a pillow and they lay on a towel and play the is-it-a-star-or-a-plane game until his fingers go numb, and then they get to know each other more, as if to make up for the time they might not know each other at all. Soul was born in Seoul, hence his name, and he likes the way Maka scrunches her nose when she eats something sour, and Maka doesn't want him to leave, doesn't want him to _leave_.

X

"I want to be like you," he professes, dabbing her cheek with his clean paintbrush. "Beautiful and brave."

Maka hates that he can stand there and wish to be more when he already transcends any form of art. All that's left to do now is paint the living room, and once that fuming mess is over, he'll be _done_ with the repairs and will have proved something to both his parents and himself, and _yet_ , he refuses to take credit for any of it. She doesn't understand how he's blind to his own strengths, his own unconditional loveliness, and the anguish must play out in her voice when she responds, "But you are, you _are_."

"Not like you, but I guess that's why we met each other. You make me a better person." A far away nostalgia softens his face, and he doesn't kiss her, doesn't touch her, but he still gets under her skin. "You're something else, you know that?"

X

It's sometime in August and they're standing on the beach.

"Is that how you smile, Soul?"

"I think so," he says because he can't lie, and Maka thinks maybe the question isn't one he's meant to answer, but should be directed to the people who'll have the privilege of being around him when the summer's over. In a few weeks she'll trade her Baywatch-esque bathing suit for a smock at a local flower shop and he'll be boarding a plane, their future unknown.

Maka leads him into the ocean hand-in-hand, where time stands still and the sky bleeds pinks and oranges and purples overhead. "I think we should give your shark swim trunk theory a try."

"Just a warning, I'll have no mercy. I'll let them take you in a blink of an eye."

But he can't keep his hands off her, fingers like feathers behind her ears and tickling along her ribcage, dotting her hairline and shoulders with kisses as she squirms, giggling, their rough housing turning urgent and overzealous. Safety means clinging onto each other as the waves sway them to and fro, his hands sliding into the back of her swimwear like she's been imagining for longer than she'd like to admit, and thinking coherently becomes impossible.

But she always knows what she wants.

"I want to be close to you," Maka says, _mouths_ , pulling herself closer and resting her forehead against his. She welcomes the shiver that temporarily paralyzes her when he squeezes her around the waist in response. "With a little less clothes."

Water droplets run alongside his nostril. "You sure?"

More hands, less clothing, more ragged, heavy breaths as they stumbled out of the ocean and through the beach house (tracking _sand everywhere)_ , and he carries her up the stairs because she's too absorbed scattering hickies on his neck to coordinate walking. Being naked in front of him is only an extension of their trust, and time does that thing again where it doesn't matter.

"You. Feel. So. _Good_ ," he complains into the dip of her collarbones. "How are you real?"

" _Soul_ ," she whispers, the last bit coming out in a choppy sigh as he trails light fingers down her bare back. She's wax all over again, quivering, the sensation of his skin on hers stimulating and an ungodly degree of incredible.

He hovers above her, attentive. "Cold?"

"Kind of," she says, face in the crook of his neck to nibble on the skin there.

He sinks inside her, _slowly_ , carefully, like she's something to be treasured, _worshipped_ , and when he pauses to make sure she's okay, Maka chants his name in encouragement. _Soul Soul Soul_. She drags her nails along his triceps and entangles her hands in his hair, bringing his face closer to hers, saying his name to offset that whole month she didn't know it until she doesn't know anything but bliss and him falling into her, grinning lazily.

"You good?"

"Mhmm," she hums, something about his messy bedhair inspiring her to put her hand on his chest and gently push him down on his back. _God_ does he look good underneath her, and the pure fascination on his face as she straddles him is empowering and heavenly. "I can go again, if you wanna."

Handsome grin, _confident_ grin. It kills her every time. " _Fuck,_ Maka, do me again and again. I like the view from here."

X

Domestic bliss is living in the beach house for a few days, sleeping in whenever they want, throwing popcorn at each other, sliding down the new hardwood floors in their socks. Showering together. It's not sexual at all, not when she's styling his hair into a shampoo-y fauxhawk and he's shaving her legs for her, not when there's sand _everywhere_ and they forget he put an ad out on the real estate market until his phone rings and snaps them back to reality.

The house sells fast, like she foretold, and Maka has never been so upset to be right in her life. She's a homesick puppy dog lagging behind him as he gathers the few belongings he hauled with him and throws them into his duffle bag, not sure what to say for once.

x

"Can't believe you're reading in the dark," he's complaining, nestled between her legs. His shoulders make great knee rests, and she's playing with his hair when she isn't flipping the pages of her book. It's the ideal setup, what with the cool wind wafting in the scent of the ocean. "What about me? I'm bored. I wanna go swimming with you."

"Swimming at night can be dangerous," she says automatically. The Lady of the Beach upholds a zero shenanigans policy. "And you still can't swim."

"But I like _you_ ," he says, stopping himself and her heart. He looks at her, unblinking, the gleam of a challenge in his eye as he rolls over to his stomach, their position suddenly less chaste but more ideal. "We could do something together, if you want…"

" _Oh_ ," she wheezes, knowing she's going to be more vocal in the next couple of minutes. There's already a molten heat building up between her legs, a coil tightening in her lower abdomen, and unwinding it _would_ be fun. "I want to. I definitely want to. Uhmm…" She's hot all over, jumbling up her words as she feels the heat of his breath in her inner thighs. "With your mouth?"

"Only with my mouth?"

" _Soul_!"

"Instructions unclear," he laughs, giving her hips an encouraging squeeze.

 _Godgodgod_. "Tongue."

But it's not enough. "Do what with my tongue?"

Part of her wants to yell _forget you_ and slip her fingers inside herself, and while that could potentially lead to the same outcome, there's nothing that can replace _him_ , so she tells him exactly what she wants. After all, she always knows what she wants, and he seems to know, too.

And of course it has to be slow. Soul doesn't rush into things, and if he's going to unravel her, he has to make her feel like she's underwater.

X


	5. postlude

"I'm going to miss you."

It's the end of summer. Maka wishes Soul wouldn't talk about things that make her feel hollow and afraid and _wistful_. She can smell his damp hair and skin and wonders when they'll see each other next as they float in the ocean, skinny dipping under the night sky. The future is vague and they'll be alright - he's going to try his hand in the family business, and she's taking a semester off before hitting the ground running again - but she might cry, anyway, because she feels too much. 

"I like you," he confesses, corners of his mouth downturned like he's troubled and betrayed by the severity of his feelings. Like she's someone to fear. "I like you _too_ much, a stupid amount. You make me nervous, Maka."

Back then she had promised herself to spin beauty out of the sorrow this moment would bring, but she hadn't taken into account how much she'd pine to be _near_ him when life happens - a good hair day, waking up at night for a drink of water, receiving a postcard in the mail from her mama, the transitional days between seasons. Sweater weather is right around the corner and he won't be by her side to shiver with and hold hands, and even though she'll still be able to hear his voice on the phone, there's always that unsatisfying second when the person on the other end sounds slightly _off_. Even with all that technology can offer to anesthetize that misery that comes with missing someone, pictures and videos and texts are a temporary, if not counterproductive, remedy.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, as they say.

"I liked you first," she says despite the tempest in her chest, reaching out and clasping his hands in hers, vowing to touch him as much as she can until he leaves. Sentimental is what she is, if the knot in her throat proves anything, so all she can do is rely on her competitiveness to carry her through this heartache.

Reminiscing _hurts_ , and so does the appreciative smile he gives her. "You found me first, you told me your name first - it's always you. You're always first, Maka."

She promises herself not to break into tears, murmuring a _mhmm_ into his neck.

"And you even kissed me first..."

And she'll kiss him last, too. For now.


End file.
